A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 87
Michael Powell and
Emeric Pressburger
DirectorsMichael Powell (above, right)
was born in Kent, UK, in 1905.
Emeric Pressburger (left)
was born in Hungary in 1902.
Pressburger worked in
Germany as a screenwriter
before fleeing the Nazis in
1935 and moving to Britain,
where he began a productive
collaboration with Powell.
Their production company,
The Archers, made 24 movies,
sealing their reputations with
classics such as The Life and
Death of Colonel Blimp, Black
Narcissus, and The Red Shoes.
Their last movie was the
wartime story Ill Met by
Moonlight (1957). In 1960,
Powell made the psychological
thriller Peeping Tom. Now
considered a masterpiece, it
was vilified on its release and
all but ended Powell’s career.
He made one more movie, Age
of Consent (1969), and died in- Pressburger had died
two years earlier.
What else to watch: Between Two Worlds (1944) ■ It’s a Wonderful Life
(1946, pp.88–93) ■ Black Narcissus (1947) ■ Heaven Can Wait (1978)
The angelic guide Conductor 71
(Marius Goring), sent to bring him
to Heaven, has missed him, and
he has survived by mistake. After
meeting and falling in love with the
American radio operator June (Kim
Hunter) he was speaking to just
before jumping, Peter appeals
to the celestial authorities against
the attempt to elevate him to “the
Other World.” The rest of the movie
shows Peter negotiating his appeal
before a heavenly court.
Special effects
The transitions between Heaven
and Earth inspire a host of
dizzyingly inventive special
effects. A ping-pong match
is frozen mid-action. A
spilled table of books
rights itself. Can any of
this be real, or is Peter
imagining it all? In a
reversal of expectations,
heaven is portrayed not
as a colorful paradise,
but in subtle silvery
monochrome—
streamlined and
modernist, with brightamphitheaters and
shiny spaces. It is, in
fact, all quite soulless.
But on Earth, life goes
on in Technicolor.Wartime message
Originally developed
during World War II,
the British Ministry of
Information encouraged
Powell and Pressburger to use the
movie to promote Anglo-American
relations, frayed by the presence of
US servicemen in the UK. As such,
the heavenly legal battle is less
about the merits of Peter’s case
than easing transatlantic tensions.
When the American prosecutor
questions whether an Englishman
and a Boston girl could really ever
be happy together, the answer
may not surprise you—but it’s
still a wonderfully human note
in a deceptively strange movie,
brimming with imagination. ■Key movies1943 The Life and Death
of Colonel Blimp
1947 Black Narcissus
1948 The Red ShoesIt was released in
the US as Stairway to
Heaven, a reference to
the escalator linking
Earth to the afterlife.Life, empowered by love,
triumphs over everything,
Powell seems to conclude.
J. G. Ballard
The Guardian, 2005